Saturday, June 18, 2011

10-17 June 2011: MACAU-SHENZHEN-HONGKONG

Day 1 (10 June): SIN-HKG-MACAU
Our flight is at 6.30am. It was tough waking up at 3am to get ready to go to the airport. Salute Hubby for waking up at 2.30am to go for a run. My FIL sent us to the airport.

We arrived at HKG at 10.25am. We took their metro from the airport to the station named 'Hong Kong', which is the city area. After which, we took a ferry to Macau. We wanted to book the ferry at 12.15pm but were told that there was only 1 seat left. Thankfully the ferry departs every 15 minutes. We bought the ferry tickets for 12.30pm.

The journey took about 1 hour. We arrived at Macau at around 1.30pm. The moment we stepped out of the arrival hall, we could see staff from the various casinos standing at the exit, directing visitors to take their free shuttle to the hotels/casinos.

Hubby said our hotel is near the Grand Lisboa Hotel, hence we took their free shuttle service. There is really no need for cabs in Macau. When we arrived at Grand Lisboa, we started to make our way to the hotel, but before that, we had our lunch at Macau's Ding Tai Fung. But the food is really disappointing, very low standard in Macau.

After lunch, we started to walk to our hotel in Macau. Hubby said he stayed in that hotel during his last visit and he should still remember the way there. We arrived at the hotel after a 10-min walk. We booked the Metropole hotel in Macau. However, when we arrived, we realised the hotel that Hubby stayed in 2 years ago was Metropark Hotel, not Metropole Hotel. My immediate worry was how far away is this Metropole Hotel. We got a map from Metropark Hotel's concierge, and thankfully the hotel isn't very far from our current position. We walked for about 15-minutes and we finally arrived at our hotel. But the room was disappointing and the room rate was pretty expensive. I won't recommend this hotel seriously.

Putting the disappointing room aside, we freshen up a little and we started to explore the area around us.

We started to make our way to Ruins of Saint Paul's and on our way we saw a couple of the famous stalls. First up is 港澳義順牛奶 (Yee Shun Dairy). They sell dessert mainly. They have quite a number of branches in Macau and Hong Kong.



We tried their 红豆双皮炖奶 (HKD 22) which is one of their famous dessert.



The milk pudding tastes good but the red bean is a tad too sweet. Nevertheless it is still worth a try.

Next up is the famous almond cookies shop in Macau- Koi Kei. Their almond cookies is superb. Hubby and I had a great time tasting the samples. Haha...We bought their Portugese Egg Tart (HKD 7) and I love the caramelised taste and yet the egg pudding remain soft inside. Yums!

It was a hot and humid day so we were quite tired after waking around Ruins of Saint Paul's. We walked around the area and soon it was dinner time. Hubby brought me to this small shop selling noodles named 'Sio Hung Mao' (小熊猫).

I had their 招牌汤面 (HKD 24). It was such a big serving with generous helping of squids, fishcakes, sausages, and many many more. If you order the spicy version, it tastes like Singapore's laksa. For HKD 24 (approximately SGD 4), it is super worth it.

招牌汤面


Hubby ordered the beef noodles. The beef is tender and the serving is big too.

Beef Noodles

Hubby's noodles come with a drink.

Honey Chrysanthemum Tea, a great quenching drink for the thirsty us.
Sio Hong Mao
Great China Plaza bl A
(Close to the tourist location: Garden of Flower City)
Opening Hours: 11am - 4am

Next is dessert! There is this shop selling Gelare. We bought 2 flavours in cone - Banana Hazelnut and Martell flavour. Yummy!



We strolled back to our hotel after that. Time to catch some rest!

Day 2 (11 June): MACAU
We started our morning with this porridge from one of the small shop located at one of those back alley.





皮蛋瘦肉粥
三元及第粥(with egg)

Porridge with Fried dough sticks - Perfect Match
Sam Un Loja de Canja 三元粥品专家
44 Rua da Felicidade Macau 福隆下街44号
7am -12noon, 7pm - 12.30am

After breakfast, we decided to visit Ah-Ma temple. We took a bus ride, the only bus ride we had to pay in Macau.

After visiting the temple, we went to the Venetian Casino, which has a shopping mall in it. The shopping mall was so huge that we lost our way inside and could find the way out. The shopping mall has this area which is similar to the one which has indoor theme park in Genting.

In Venetian
After Venetian, we walked to a food district in hope to find the famous Pork Chop Bun and Bird Nest Egg Tart.

And despite feeling hot and hungry, we were determine to find the store. And tada!

The famous San Hou Lei Restaurant


Well-known enough to have newspaper articles


Portuguese Egg Tart 

Bird Nest Egg Tart


The famous and much-ordered pork chop bun

Soft & fluffy Bo Luo Bao

San Hou Lei
Rua de Regedor 13 & 14, Taipa, Macau
7.30am to 6.30pm

We decided to visit another casino beside Venetian which is the Galaxy, and we saw this shop by the roadside crowded. We decided to try their pork chop in bo luo bao.




Verdict? Not as nice as the previous one. And it is expensive somemore (HKD 20).

After visiting Galaxy and gamble a bit, we went back to the area near our hotel. We had our dinner at the famous noodle restaurant - Wong Chi Kei.

The famous Wanton noodle with shrimp roe.
The shrimp roe didn't really enhance the taste of the noodles.
Tasted good overall.

We ordered the fried wanton actually but somehow the waitress got the order wrong and this crab porridge was served instead. The crab porridge was good (but expensive, HKD 52).

Crab porridge
We were adamant to try their giant fried wanton and hence we decided to come back for breakfast tomorrow morning.

Wong Chi Kei
Travessa de Cinco de Outubro 51, R/C, Macau
Opens at 8.30am


Day 3 (12 June): MACAU-SHENZHEN
We were back at Wong Chi Kei for breakfast. But it seemed to be fated that we will not get to try the fried wanton. The waitress told us the fried wanton will only be available after 11am.

Hubby's beef brisket with wanton noodles.

My simple yet satisfying Wanton Noodles.


We checked out from the hotel after breakfast and made our way to the Macau ferry terminal to go Shenzhen. The ferry took about 1hour 15 min. Upon arriving, we checked in to Century Plaza Hotel, which is near to the Metro Station and the Luo Hu Shopping District. It is a nice 4* hotel with good service. The rate we got from asiarooms was surprisingly cheap. We had a comfortable stay.

Our first agenda was Dim Sum lunch!


One of the restaurant in Luo Hu Shopping District

The appetizers - taste good!

This is the Liu Sha Bao, with custard and salted egg yolk. Taste heavenly!

Yummy!

Har gou with generous serving of prawns

Cheong Fun with prawns

Xiao Long Bao -  nothing compared to the ones we had in Shanghai (Nan Xiang)

Siu mai - with prawns of course

The dim sum at Shenzhen was comparable to those we had in Hong Kong.

After food, it's time for shopping! Shoes, skirts, pants...woo hoo!

We went Dong Men for shopping and this is the first time in my life that I told Hubby,"I think I have seen enough of shoes for the day." The number of shops and varieties of shoes is enough to make me go haywire if I were to walk into every shop.

We came to one eating place which we thought is worth a try but turned out to be a disaster.

At Dong Men

Milk Tea

We ordered this dessert but they ran out of ingredients, sad.

Ordered Yang Zhi Gan Lu instead. But it was disappointing.
Who the hell will put watermelon strips in this dessert?


Black pepper chicken baked rice - super salty...yucks
We went back to the hotel after dinner.
Hubby found that the hotel actually provided robes! He was super excited.



Day 4 (13 June): SHENZHEN
We started our day with breakfast at this eatery named Hong Li Chun.





A shop that sell freshly grinded soya drink.

Buying red dates soya....yummy!
We took a 30 minutes bus ride to our next destination. The bus journey is a scary one. The driver is reckless. Nonetheless, we managed to arrive at our destination safely.

Minsk World
The highlight of this attraction/theme park is the former Soviet aircraft carrier "Minsk" - you can tour different parts of the humongous ship such as the deck, bridge, torpedo room, missile areas, officer's mess, aircraft hangar, etc. Mock Soviet military parades are conducted on the deck at regular intervals. It's a pity that the carrier is not well-maintained, otherwise it would be a really good tourist attraction. But well, I still enjoy it.






We took a bus back to Luo Hu District and we settled our lunch at one of the fast-food restaurant alike noodle place.









We went for more shopping after lunch. We went back to Dong Men.


My Taro Milk Tea

Dinner at a fast food joint selling soya milk.

Our dinner spread-soya milk, dough stick wrapped in omelette, beef brisket noodles, mango pudding









Day 5 (14 June): SHENZHEN-HKG
Breakfast is back at Yong He King for 2 reasons. Both of us were quite tired after so many days of walking & shopping. We need to check out after breakfast to get to Hong Kong. We ordered almost the same things as the night before. We replaced the noodles with porridge and Beef Pancake. Quite disappointing but well, their soya milk is good.



We checked out of our hotel and made our way to Hong Kong. We are staying at the Royal Plaza Hotel, which is linked from the Metro Station (Mong Kok East) through a shopping mall (something like our Swissotel which is linked by Raffles City Shopping Centre). A great 5* hotel at only HKD 888 per night. We had a couple of egg tarts after we have checked into the hotel.



After that, we went to Pacific Coffee to use the internet as we need to settle our last night stay's accomodation (we had booked 2 nights instead of 3). We finally booked our last night stay at Metropark Hotel, Macau. The rate is HKD 990, due to the last minute booking. Sigh...a more expensive rate for a poorer quality hotel.

We settled our lunch at a small eatery opposite Metropark Hotel.

Wanton Noodles

Beef Brisket Noodles

Cai Xin

We went to the women's street after lunch. First stop: Hui Lau San




Hubby's favourite stall
The intestines and what-nots of cow (niu za)+ spicy fishballs(yu dan)

Pig's large intestines (da chang)

smelly beancurd, gong-cha
The famous fei-jie stall which sells the intestines stuff as well but they are served cold with a special sauce and  wasabi.

Yum yum

I love this snack......don't know what you call it though.

That's how we end our day. No dinner but lots of snacking.

Day 6 (15 June): HKG
We woke up feeling hungry. We went to the area around our hotel to explore and find a place to eat before setting off to Ocean Park.

We went to a Cha Chan Teng that food really sucks and super expensive. 2 soya milk, 1 serving of fish siu mai, 1 bo luo bao and 1 serving of Cha Siu Cheong Fun cost us HKD 109!!! Sigh.

Unhappy thing aside, we set off to Ocean Park.
































We left the Ocean Park at around 1.30pm. We were at the Metro station where we saw a small stall selling healthy drink and buns.

HKD 28 for a set (It would be HKD 22 for the drink and HKD 14 for the bun if we buy them separately) 
We decided to visit Wong Tai Sin Temple.


A very small frog, that is, if you can see it.


We managed to catch some insects in action.



We headed back to the area around women's street again in the evening for dinner. We stumbled upon this Cha Chan Teng that we were looking out for. This Cha Chan Teng is famous for their bo luo bao. We went back thrice subsequently to have their egg tart and bo luo bao. 


Mouth-watering bo luo bao




Fried Beef Hor Fun


After a nice dinner, we went around looking for running and tennis shoes for Hubby. After which, we went to the Temple Street to look at the interesting sights of all the fortune tellers setting up their stalls in rows and some even appeared in professional outfits.

On our way there, we had a small stop to have our dessert.
Black sesame paste with glutinous rice dumplings. (HKD 20)
After walking back to Mongkok from Temple Street, I saw this stall selling crepe and just could resist trying one.


Cheese with mushroom and bacon



Day 7 (16 June): HKG
It started raining heavily during the last 2 days of our stay in HK. Hence I could make it to visit the big buddha. Sigh.

Breakfast is as usual at Kim Wah Eatery.




We had no choice but to go Tsim Sha Tsui for a walk. We went to the space museum and even watched a IMAX movie. Haha.





We came back to Mongkok to eat dim sum at this place whom we saw a crowd the night before.


HKD 88 for a sumptous meal, worth it.

腐皮卷


Har Gow - It has been so long since I have eaten Har Gow with such nice texture of the dough.



Siu Mai with seaweed - nice!

This dim sum has 4 main ingredients wrapped in beancurd skin.  (Yam-top left, fish maw-centre, ham- top right, chicken meat-bottom). The different textures of each ingredient makes this dim sum so yummy.

We continued shopping around and tada!

Coffee jelly milk tea

And the usual snacking routine continues......

Day 8 (17 June): HKG
It is the last day of holiday. Our flight is at 3.25pm hence we still have a little time in the morning. We went for breakfast at this Fei Zai eatery.










The dim sum at Xi Dian and bo luo bao at Kim Wah is still better...haha

We went back to the hotel and started packing up. We went to the Goldfish street to see the fishes and some exotic animals they have for sale (giant tortoises, chameleons, etc).

We took the metro to the airport. And we have our last dim sum lunch there.


Fried carrot cake

Char Siu Bao


Cheong Fun

Shark fin's dumplings

Fresh prawn siu mai


Mango and pomelo (yang zhi gan lu)

30% discount....worth it!
That's it! The end of our holidays. Looking forward to the next.

Hubby's friend fetched us from the airport and we even played mahjong after that...haha